He Will Come to Us Like the Rain

My heart has been so heavy lately--
heavy with sadness and anxious for my children's future.
Pondering and contemplating.
And there is just a weight on my shoulders.
I walked out of the house this evening with some errands to do,
and my six ducklings tagging along (one of which is taller than I am now).
I went to pull the car out, and there had been a little rain.
It's so lovely how it clears the air,
and fills my senses with its cleanness.
You don't know what a luxury and a mercy water is
until you move into a desert.
But it's such a precious gift when water falls free from the sky,
and washes out the dust.

The very first rain that ever fell on this earth was judgement.
Forty days and forty nights of it.
It was unfamiliar, but well earned.

Later, with the law, came a promise:
"I will give you rain in its season,
the land shall yield its produce,
and the trees of the field shall yield their fruit."
(Leviticus 26:4)

And there was a promise to Israel:
"The land which you go to possess
is not like the land of Egypt from which you have come,
where you sowed your seed
and watered it by foot, as a vegetable garden;
but the land which you cross over to possess
is a land of hills and valleys,
which drinks water from the rain of heaven,
a land for which the Lord your God cares;
the eyes of the Lord your God are always on it,
from the beginning of the year to the very end of the year.
And it shall be
that if you earnestly obey My commandments which I command you today,
to love the Lord your God
and serve Him with all your heart and with all your soul,
then I will give you the rain for your land in its season,
the early rain and the latter rain,
that you may gather in your grain, your new wine, and your oil.
And I will send grass in your fields for your livestock,
that you may eat and be filled.
Take heed to yourselves, lest your heart be deceived,
and you turn aside and serve other gods and worship them,
lest the Lord's anger be aroused against you,
and He shut up the heavens so that there be no rain,
and the land yield no produce,
and you perish quickly from the good land which the Lord is giving you..."
(Deuteronomy 11)

"He shall come down like rain upon the grass before mowing,
like showers that water the earth."
(Psalm 72:6)

"Come, and let us return to the Lord;
for He has torn, but He will heal us;
He has stricken, but He will bind us up.
After two days, He will revive us;
on the third day He will raise us up,
that we may live in His sight.
Let us know, let us pursue the knowledge of the Lord.
His going forth is established as the morning;
He will come to us like the rain,
like the former and latter rain to the earth."
(Hosea 6:1-3)

If you follow the rain through the Scriptures, you find two things:
the judgement of God in its destructive power;
and the mercy of God in providing it in its season.
Oh, and also famine.
Whether in giving it, or in withholding it, our eyes ought to be on Him.
We need Him to rain softly on us, to water us for fruitfulness.
We need Him to hold it back in seasons of sunlight, so we don't drown.
We recognize His judgement in flood and in famine.

I rejoice in a soft rain.
The loveliness of its smell, the coolness it brings to the dusty earth.
But I want it temperately.
I do not want a flood of judgement.
And I want enough.

So this evening, I breathed in the cleanness, and thought of Him.
But I did my errands heavily.
We looked out the windows of the store
as we brought our purchases up to pay,
and the sun was low and slanting in the sky.
The clouds were dark.
The sun broke through, and lit up the wet world
and the green trees from within.
We hurried to buckle the babies in standing in the rain.
And to get them out again at the next store.
The kids deliberated over their purchases, but finally decided,
and we prepared to run out to the car again.
But one step out of the store, and we were stopped in our tracks.
There was a brilliant double rainbow spanning the entire town.
From the set of hills south of us into the set north of us.
Glowing neon.
We stood and pointed.
It was just a soft rain, and we were mesmerized.
And I was reminded again of His judgement,
and of His covenant of mercy.

And God said: "This is the sign of the covenant which I make between Me and you, and every living creature that is with you, for perpetual generations: I set My rainbow in the cloud, and it shall be for the sign of the covenant between Me and the earth..." (Genesis 9)

The Mind-Numbing Work of Redemption

I do the same things All The Time.
I pick up the dirty clothes, and sort them into the hampers.
I button the buttons, and turn the socks right side out.
I spray the stains, and I fill the washing machine.
I take the wet clothes out, and straighten them,
and hang them on the clothesline to dry.
I take them down, and fold them, and send them to be put away.
And then I sort them out into the hampers again.

I rinse dirty plates, and stack them,
and I fill the dishwasher with them.
I unload the clean dishes, and put them in the cupboards,
and then do it again.
Sometimes three times a day.

I nurse the baby in the middle of the night,
and I feed him again in the morning.
In the late morning.
At noontime.
In the afternoon.
In the late afternoon.
At dinner.
In the late evening, just before he goes to bed.

I change diapers.
And again.
And again.
The progress of my days
is marked by piles of used diapers,
moved bookmarks,
dirty dishes, 
and clothes that need another washing.

I told my husband, "I don't know what purpose I have right now."
A friend asked me how I am doing, and I said, "I feel dull."
And I do.
I mean, seriously,
what point is there
in washing and washing and straightening
what is never clean,
and never straightened out?
You would think I do nothing at all
if you looked at the crumbs on my floor.
Because if I vacuum three times a day,
there are still crumbs on my floor.

I have been meditating on the Proverbs 31 woman,
whose equal I am not.
And I've been thinking about how she wraps herself up in food prep,
and laundry maintenance.
And I was contemplating two questions the other morning:
What is God doing in my life?
And how do I join God in His work?

What is God doing in my life?
He's drawing me into fellowship with Himself and with others.
He's refining me.
He's making me new in Christ.
He cares for me and my concerns.
He redeems me.
He washes me.
He comforts me.
He heals me.
He plants, waters, weeds, prunes...
He fills my darkness with His light.
He's working resurrection in me.

And how do I join Him in His work?
Kissing hurts, and healing wounds.
Mending what's broken.
Washing what is dirty.
Straightening what is crooked.
Feeding the hungry.
Planting and weeding and watering.
Bleaching out the stains.
And returning what has become unusable to a state of usefulness. 

Suddenly the laundry stains are meditative.
And the dishes, endlessly worthless with grime,
are also endless reminders of the restorative work He does in me.
The children needing comfort,
and the babies needing baths --
are praiseworthy reminders of the comfort He gives,
and the washing of the Word.

The dishes and the laundry are in constant need of redemption--
as I must constantly be redeemed from the sin that soils me.
My usefulness depends on my washing.

I looked down at the pants I was wearing -- a thrift store purchase.
A cast-off redeemed.
I put the same things back in their places every single day.
I bring order out of chaos.
And while I work in the kitchen, the toddler is trashing the living room.
And the shoes are scattered out of their baskets in the laundry room.
And it isn't going to end.
But as they mature (and we have other areas in disarray to set right),
they'll lend their hands to the work.

The material matters.
These mind-numbing, repetitive tasks that I do again and again
are the very same tasks He has set for Himself in me.

How To Sustain

Sunday morning, February 28,
I was in the Word
and had my attention drawn to two passages of Scripture.
The first is Proverbs 15:4:
"A wholesome tongue is a tree of life: 
but perverseness in it breaks the spirit."
A wholesome tongue.
A healing tongue.
Another version called it a gentle tongue.

So, I was praying about that.
Thinking about what James says about our tongues.
A very world of iniquity.
And that the man who has control over that is a perfect man.
I prayed for forgiveness and transformation.
Because I have not achieved such perfection.
And sometimes, the words escape me.

I want to heal with my words. 
To restore and redeem. 
To reconcile. 
To build up.
To bless You and Your people. 

Then the Lord brought my attention to Isaiah 50:4:
"The Lord God has given me the tongue of those who are taught, 
that I may know how to sustain with a word him who is weary."
Ah, Lord-- give me the tongue of those who are taught.
I want to know how to sustain the weary with a word. 

I read through these with my children, and we prayed together about them, too.

Sunday afternoon my brother went to the ER
because a pharmacist told him to when he saw his swollen elbow.
Tuesday afternoon, he went in for exploratory surgery
because of an infection that was not responding to antibiotics, and kept growing.
In surgery, he finally got a diagnosis: necrotizing fasciitis.
Maybe you never heard of it.
You probably don't want to.
I actually already knew what it was
because we have a family friend
whose life God miraculously spared from it in the 1990s.

A number of us skipped dinner for intercession,
(my oldest three children joined in that decision).
I did not sleep much.
My brother's ambulance was arriving at his third hospital very late,
and I wanted as much news as I could get.
And I was praying.

Once he was in surgery again,
and I knew the news would be awhile in coming, I grew so tired.
I fell asleep on my phone.
When I woke up, in the wee hours of the morning,
I looked at my phone and saw a little conversation, but still no news.
I prayed again, and found myself thanking God
for my brother, my family, my parents and my husband,
my very dear brothers and sisters in Christ
who were awake praying over my baby brother,
doctors and nurses who care and strain themselves doing it.

My sister said a little while later that she had fallen asleep
feeling guilty that she was so tired she couldn't stay awake.
So tired.
But here's the thing, and what really has been balm:
While we were collapsing exhausted,
the Lord was waking up people who love Him to intercede.
I've heard from at least fifteen people
(and I do not doubt there are more)
who were awakened to pray in the night.
And I think of Moses standing with his arms lifted but weary,
and friends who care coming in to support.
And I am overwhelmed with gratitude
at God's handiwork in uniting a family that is not family.
I am so thankful for the family He placed me in,
that transcends states and nations, that crosses over time zones.
When one member suffers, we all suffer.
Bless the Lord, who daily loads us with benefits.

And yesterday, as I was pondering the whole thing,
and thinking how like to flesh eating bacteria
the growing evil in our nation and world is,
and how we need to be directed to the care of a doctor,
to have the condition recognized for what it is,
to be scrubbed clean of it,
and to be prayed over,
but we are too tired and weak to intercede alone --
the words came back from Sunday morning again.

A wholesome tongue.
A healing tongue.
The tongue of those who are taught.
That I may know how to sustain with a word him who is weary.
Because we are weary.
My brother's body is weary.
And prayer and the Word sustain.

And perhaps God will have mercy on our nation if we call out to Him.
Those who are taught intercede.

Quiet Time

It's that magical time in the morning*
when the sleeping baby begins to grunt
and snort
and squawk
and scream.
When a mother tries to pray,
and all the children outside her bedroom door quote movie lines.
When she opens her Bible
and hears a loud crash, and someone cries out in agony.
When the sound of small feet running slams into her bedroom door,
knocking it open,
and a smiling toddler appears saying,
"Me watch Baby Beluga?!"
When, even though she is trying to read in Genesis,
her mind sticks on this:
There is a difference also between a wife and a virgin. 
(You think?)
The unmarried woman is anxious for the things of the Lord, 
that she may be holy, both in body and in spirit: 
but she that is married, is anxious for the things of the world...
Talk about serving the Lord with distraction. 
Foiled again.
I guess I'll take a shower.


*Morning, to most people, signifies the early part of the day. Here, please take it to mean any point within the twenty-four hour span of a day in which a moment of silence might tempt a woman to try again.

Cream of Sausage-Sauerkraut Soup

When you make bratwurst cooked with sauerkraut,
and serve it with baked or roasted potatoes,
the leftovers are the perfect beginning to soup the next day.

Heat butter in a pan.
Saute onions in it, if you want to.
Add chopped kale or spinach if you have it.
I made it today without either onions, kale, or spinach,
but they really do improve it.
When they are softened,
add chopped sausage (Polish works fine, too),
and all the sauerkraut,
and cook a little before adding a couple of tablespoons of flour.
Stir well, and add a little chicken broth and your chopped leftover potatoes.
Heat to very hot,
then temper cream or milk with it before adding all of it back to your pan.
Stirring often, cook until thick and bubbly.
Even my soup-hater asks for seconds.

Make Her Beautiful

We listen to a song often that was done by Hillary and Kate.

You make beautiful things
You make beautiful things out of the dust
You make beautiful things
You make beautiful things out of us

You make me new, You are making me new
You make me new, You are making me new

It's such a lovely song, with such a simple truth.
And I think of the scripture that tells husbands
to love their wives as Christ loved the church:
how He gave Himself for her,
sanctifies her, 
and washes her with the water of the Word.
The church does not come perfect to the Savior's arms.

Sometimes I read Christian marriage advice and it's so cardboard.
I get especially annoyed by the advice to wives
that tells them how to be perfect.
To get perfect hair and exercise more and wear lipstick.

I'm a tomboy at heart, and not a trophy.
And I have never wanted to be a glossy beauty.
I wanted to be loved.
I wanted to be wanted.
But not wanted because I looked like someone else's idol.

When I met my husband, I was going out of my way to not be glossy.
Imagine this beauty, (which was a regular ensemble):
overall shorts and a t-shirt,
a braid pulled through a baseball cap pulled down low,
and thick socks with work boots.
I had some assets I could play up,
but I wasn't exactly in the frame of mind to catch anyone.
In fact, I was tired of being noticed physically.
It felt more like an insult than a compliment to be thought pretty. 

The first time I met him, I wasn't quite so off-putting in my dress
as described above.
I was wearing a hippy skirt with the work boots.
I guess in a small way, the skirt said 'feminine'.
We were praying in a group for a mutual friend
who was suffering from LSD flashbacks.
He openly stared at me through the prayer.
He didn't look away when I looked at him.

One day, a couple of weeks later,
I got off duty in the kitchen
when everyone else had eaten their dinner already,
and he sat down with me while I ate my dinner.
He asked me what I was going to do that evening.
"I thought I'd go up to the cafe and read poetry," I said. "What are you doing?"
"I thought I'd go up to the cafe and read poetry," he answered.
It was just plain -- I'm going to hang around you and be with you.
No pretending to run into me.
No begging to join me.

My husband makes me feel beautiful.
I am 32 and a half weeks pregnant.
I'm big.
And I'm older and tired.
My skin is drying out, and my lips have faded.
My hands are getting kind of papery.
My hair is frizzier than it used to be.
But he treats me like I'm beautiful.
It's my sixth child I am pregnant with.
He doesn't say things like,
"Have you thought about maybe getting a gym membership 
and getting back what you once had?"
Or, "Maybe you could get laser treatment 
for some of those scars that are marking you up now."
I cannot imagine that he does not see these flaws.
They are glaring realities to me.
But he doesn't seem to see these flaws --
even though he packed the wounds that left them for me.

I think I'd even rather have the scars that mar me
just to see how he looks at me like I am beautiful anyway.
The reality is that I am not more beautiful than I was
in my young, strong, healthy, unmarred body.
But weirdly, I feel more beautiful to him now than I did then.
I'm more confident in his love than I was.
I don't feel like I have to hide from his eyes,
in order to maintain the illusion of perfection.
If, in his eyes I am perfect, I will accept his verdict.
And where perfection was lacking,
he helped bring it about with his own hands.
Not the perfection of an airbrushed photo,
but the perfection of healed flesh and whole skin.
Of function where there was brokenness.
When I first saw the damage, I cried.
I couldn't look until it was nearly done healing, and I still cried.
But he saw it in every stage, and he never recoiled.
He didn't cry, and he didn't criticize, and he didn't complain.
He changed bandages twice a day.
And he did the dishes while I laid there.

Husbands:
if you want to be married to a beautiful woman,
let your love make her beautiful.
Don't compare her to the unflawed women you see.
The ones who haven't borne your children in their bodies.
Don't shame her for the thing that she is.

You make beautiful things
You make beautiful things out of the dust
You make beautiful things
You make beautiful things out of us

You make me new, You are making me new
You make me new, You are making me new

A Mouse Is Responsible

I came across a news item that began thus:
"A mouse is responsible for triggering a stampede in a mosque 
in the Moroccan city of Casablanca 
which left more than 80 people injured, officials say."
It went on to say, "Worshippers were reported to have fainted 
after a mouse crossed over a woman's foot while she was praying, 
causing her to rush outside and creating panic among worshippers."

We had a mouse problem in a former house.
They had grown bold, and ran right across the living room while we were in it.
One night, my husband was sitting on the floor, and a mouse ran past him.
Without thought, his hand flew at it, and it was knocked out.
In fact, it might have died instantly.
He picked it up by the tail and flushed it down the toilet.
A mouse is a slappable fear.
A flushable fear -- until we let it stampede us.
Because our stampeding can crush real lives.
The stampede was what injured the crowd.
Have you ever been stampeded by a mouse?

I fight fear.
Crippling fear, at times.
Gut-wrenching, knee-shaking fear.
Stampeding fear.
One way I fight it is to let it knock me down,
and then I pray there.
I try swallowing it, sometimes, but it comes back up.
I feel my heart swell and pound,
and my resolve turn to Jello.
And my thoughts race to a bunker filled with organic canned goods
and solar-powered electronics
and books
and gold pieces
and plenty of yarn to knit.
But then what?
I don't want to live in the bunker.
So I drop down again on the weak knees, and let myself say it all there.
All the fears,
and the griefs for things that are someone else's reality that I can't fix.
The distress over world affairs that are so wrong.
They're so, so wrong.
They are sickeningly, damningly wrong.
And the good guys are only half as guilty...

Back to my knees.
Lord, You had mercy on the children in Nineveh.
You were willing to rescue Lot's daughters from Sodom. 
There is no hope in us... but YOU are merciful. 

Peter said things to women that jump out at me and run through my mind:
"...your pure behaviour in fear, 
whose adorning--let it not be that which is outward, 
of plaiting of hair, 
and of putting around of things of gold, 
or of putting on of garments, 
but--the hidden man of the heart, 
in the incorruptible thing of the meek and quiet spirit, 
which is, before God, of great price, 
for thus once also the holy women who did hope on God, 
were adorning themselves, being subject to their own husbands, 
as Sarah was obedient to Abraham, 
calling him `sir,' of whom ye did become daughters, doing good, 
and not fearing any terror."

He mentions faultless behavior in fear,
but then says not fearing any terror.
Not put to flight by fear.
Hmmm.
Perhaps a faultless response to fear 
is not to surround ourselves with gold and garments,
but to stock up on meekness and a quiet spirit.
That's rich currency with God.
Holy women hope on Him.
They dress themselves in obedience.
They do good in the very face of the fear.
And they are not stampeded.

It Isn't All My Life

Sometimes you ask me how I am, and I demur.
Maybe someone just called my husband in crying distress and needing prayer,
and it's broken our hearts that the same people
who have borne up under so much pain are hurting again.
Why do some people
seem to get so much more than their fair share of grief and heartache?
Shouldn't there be a rule
that you only have to deal with one death every ten or twenty years or so?
They're on my heart, and you want to know how I am,
and I'm fine.
Really, I am.
And how is that fair?
And I can't talk about how they're hurting, because it's their private grief.
And although they shared it with us, it isn't ours to share.

And just a day or two later,
someone confides a soaring joy that makes us laugh out loud --
and tells us we can't breathe a word of it.
Even though it's a fulfilled promise of God.
And we nod, and try to tamp down the smiles a little,
so as not to let on that we know.
And it's such a privilege to be allowed into both --
the sorrow and the rejoicing.
But, man -- how to respond to your question?
How am I?
I'm elated!
I'm heartbroken.
I can't tell you about either.

And so I tell you something mundane from my life.
And maybe you think I'm withdrawn.
Or I'm hiding something.
Or that I don't want to be friends.
And I want to be friends.
I want to share my life --
but it isn't all my life.

And even sometimes when it's my own hurt I don't speak of,
it's because maybe someone has acted badly.
They've done something mean,
and I'm trying to respond the way I ought to.
I don't post their dirty laundry on my Facebook status,
and gather all my friends to my side to condemn them.
Because do you know my hope?
I hope they come to their senses.
I hope they recognize the error someday.
And how will they ever be able to do that
if everyone they know thinks they are the devil's own apprentice?

A friend told me a story about a pastor he knew
who had been really wronged by people who knew him.
He'd been slandered and they had drawn others away and separated themselves.
The pastor had been really upset privately in my friend's presence --
and rightly so, frankly.
He's a human being with natural emotions.
The pastor had said he'd be happy if he never saw ______ again.
A few years went by.
The person he'd said that about realized he'd been misled.
He'd misjudged the whole thing.
He came back repentant and asked to be forgiven.
A few more years went by.
A new area needed a church pastor.
The pastor laid hands on and sent out that same guy who had come back.
Our friend was a private witness to both.
And I smiled to hear about restored fellowship with more depth --
the depth of repentance and forgiveness.
A reality of Christian fellowship.
Sometimes when we're hurt,
we have to choose the end game.
Hope for reconciliation, because we are family, screw-ups and all.

In the same way that you will never have a healthy marriage
if you go tattling about every failure your spouse has to your family of origin;
how will you live love for the church
if you can't swallow a few hurts and hope for the best?
Sometimes our love points out an error,
and sometimes it shuts its mouth and prays,
and accepts a painful slight.
Paul rebuked Christians for going to court against each other.
"Why not rather be wronged?" he asked them,
"Why not rather be defrauded?"
Better to be a victim in this case, than a plaintiff.

And how are you doing?

If You've Wondered

The toddler has been flipping out for days.
Arching her back.
Banging her head on the floor.
"What does your shirt say?" Talia asks her, in a pleasant voice,
in an attempt to distract her from yet another fit.
"IIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIII!!!!!!" she screams back at her.
She tries to hang on the open secretary desk.
"No, no," I say gently. "You can't hang on that. It will hurt you."
She melts down, slapping my leg and weeping,
and then attempts to climb me.

Her third tooth is in,
birthed through another sleepless night of thrashing and much Orajel.
She still has her charmingly sociable personality,
only it's been joined by an alter ego that is furious and mean.
She runs like a whirlwind through the house,
climbing things that scare me, and undoing all order.
She tries to climb the bookshelf.
She's taken down, and flings herself angrily at the ground.
When I try to read out loud, as our homeschooling lifestyle demands,
she yells through the whole experience.

She does not want her hair combed.
She does not want her diaper changed.
She does not want her nose wiped or her face washed.
She wants to eat, and rejects all offered food.
She spent several days in a war between her mouth,
which didn't want to put anything in it,
and her tummy, which cried for hunger.
She would only eat enough to take the edge off,
and then would be crying again shortly because it wasn't enough.

Nap times are respites.
Except we are reading through most of them lately,
since she interrupts so much of it earlier.
Why am I writing this?
Because maybe you wondered where I am.
Why I write so little lately.

I am tired.
We've had company,
and while I know they are people who love us, and aren't expecting the Hilton,
it seems reasonable to me that sheets be washed and basic cleaning be done.
And I can't keep up.
We are pressing on to finish school,
because that is one of our very top priorities in life.
And we are doing the dishes and feeding people.
And we are trying to keep from drowning in laundry.
And please don't even talk to me about my children's bedrooms.
Just shut the door.

As if drowning in dirty laundry wasn't bad enough,
WHY are the clean clothes being put back into the laundry again?
Please explain how the hampers in your bedrooms, 
the three hamper sorter in the hall outside your bedrooms, 
AND the large basket hamper in your bathroom just off the hall 
ARE NOT ENOUGH HAMPERS TO DEPOSIT YOUR DIRTY CLOTHES IN?

Life operates in seasons, and this is one of exhaustion.
When I have a few minutes, I mostly stare at a wall.
I miss writing more often.
I miss not stepping on toys and discarded food.
I miss time to think.
I miss reading books of my own choosing while not falling asleep.

A Shameless Plug

So, I use Sonlight curriculum to homeschool my kids.
For the most part, we love it.
It's been a good fit for our family.
We've used it since 2007, I think.

I was kind of excited this year
to get an email from them
inviting me to register to win a year of free curriculum.
The thing is, I am only eligible to win
if friends also go and register through my link.
I do not mind sharing my love for Sonlight with my friends,
since I have a genuine appreciation for their products.
This one is exciting, because it's free curriculum!
Whoever wins, will win a year for the first mom and the referred friend.
If you are even slightly interested in that,
would you go sign up through this link?
I think after you do, they'll give you a link you can share, too.

http://25.sonlight.com/wp-login.php?action=register&v=4&ref=10327#sthash.jfWWp4zj.dpuf

Sonlight's Mom to Mom Curriculum Giveaway

http://25.sonlight.com/wp-login.php?action=register&v=4&ref=10327#sthash.jfWWp4zj.dpuf

http://25.sonlight.com/wp-login.php?action=register&v=4&ref=10327#sthash.jfWWp4zj.dpuf

To Be Their Mom

I scroll down through my Facebook feed, and I see so many mothers.
Sporty mothers cheering on young athletes.
Baking mothers who make my mouth water.
The ones who stay home
long after other mothers have taken up the soccer and ballet rounds
because they have one with special needs.
Moms with the beginning of a clan,
and some with just one little chick.
I see moms
who traveled to China and Guatemala and Ethiopia
to gather up their babies.
I know two who had children they weren't looking for handed to them.
I see my friends with empty arms, whose babies are not with them.
They had to lay them down to rest long before they wanted to.

There are busy ones, who race from one activity to the next.
Bookworm moms, who inhabit the couches with their kids and a good book.
Tatooed and pierced,
in overalls,
or dressed like tea party ladies,
we all have this in common:
We've opened our lives to our children.

Becoming a mother is to become vulnerable.
We don't know what we will end up with.
Whether it's carrying a burden for many long years,
as we work to lift children who can't carry themselves;
or bearing the grief of a loss too strong for words.
Will it be joy?
Yes, it will. Some joy.
Will it be struggle?
Yes, it will. And with the same child who brought the joy.
There will be years of chaos,
even if it's only Cheerios scattered over the entire house.
There will be messy faces and messy bodies.
There will be tears, and not just from the children.
Their pain is going to hurt you.

The kids are going to fail.
And you are going to fail your kids.
And if you do it right, there will be apologies and forgivenesses.
And they'll learn that love means hope for future good.
That love covers a multitude of sin,
and grace allows us to begin again.

And you don't have to be a cookie-cutter mom to be their Mom.
Each one of us is uniquely made,
and uniquely challenged with this sanctified relationship.
Our children don't match.
Our lives don't match.
But we are one in Christ,
and the goal is to hear, "Well, done, you good and faithful servant."
I can't help but think about Jesus's conversation with Peter
where Peter asked about John, "What about him?"
And Jesus replied to him, "What is it to you...? You follow Me."

Never mind the other mamas.
Each of us has our own race to run.
But follow Him where He leads you.
It's your own Master you have to answer to.
And He is able to make you stand.

Suffer Little Children

Maybe you have heard that prayer:
'Lord, I give You my life.
You have my permission to interrupt it any way You please.'

And the interruption comes,
and it really throws a monkey wrench into your plans,
and other people's plans for you are messed up, too.
Because it's a crying interruption, with a runny nose,
and it needs a nap every day at consistent times to be happy and functional.
And it reminds you that God's priorities aren't the same as everyone else's.

And those interrupting children are God's children.
And sending them away so Jesus can do His important work in adults
is something He'd rebuke you for.
They are the kingdom.
Really?
Jesus the King of Little Children?
Squirmy children with sticky hands?
Hungry children with their hands out?
Tantrumy children who get underfoot?

"At the same time came the disciples to Jesus, saying, 
Who is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven? 
And Jesus called a little child to Him, and set him in the midst of them, 
And said, Verily I say to you, 
Except ye be converted, and become as little children, 
ye shall not enter into the kingdom of heaven. 
Whoever therefore shall humble himself as this little child, 
the same is greatest in the kingdom of heaven.
And whoever shall receive one such little child in My name, receiveth Me." 
~Matthew 18:1-5

The disciples obviously blew off His answer to their question,
because in the very next chapter it says,
"Then were brought to Him little children, 
that He should put his hands on them, and pray: 
and the disciples rebuked them. 
But Jesus said, Suffer little children, 
and forbid them not to come to Me: 
for of such is the kingdom of heaven.
And He laid His hands on them..."
Matthew 19:13-15

Who is the greatest?
He called a child.
And that kid came when He called him.
He didn't say, "I'll have to get back to you on that, Jesus,
after I've checked my schedule."
With no pride and no agenda,
he came over and stood there as an object lesson.
And the disciples looked on and dismissed his importance.
Jesus was doing His divine work in the proximity of children.
Close enough to call them over.
They were familiar enough with Him that they came if He called.

In Mark, when this story is told,
it says Jesus was very displeased
when He saw the disciples rebuking them.
Indignant.
He was grieved, and He ached.
He wanted them near Him.
Receiving a child in His name is receiving Him.
They are something to 'suffer' at times.
Immature.
Unreasonable.
Demanding and exhausting.

We have limited resources of time and energy,
and they suck up more of it than we have.
We'd rather put the time into things that show.
Yesterday, I vacuumed the whole downstairs of my house.
By evening, the floor was scattered with Cheerios
that Lydia had dropped in every room,
some of them after chewing a little first.
I folded napkins that she threw on the floor,
and then 'helped' me pick up again.
It's a perpetual cycle of unending work.
Jesus said to suffer them.

And so, we prepare to welcome another.
Yes, Lord, You can interrupt our lives.
Change our world.
Slow our steps.

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Because it's a crying interruption, with a runny nose,

Even Our Confusion

I love to hear stories of God's faithfulness to help an asker.
My husband visited with an older couple recently
and brought me home some stories.
These people were home because of some adversity,
but what they wanted to talk about
was how God had answered their prayers.
Such a refreshing difference from negative reports and complaints.

Years before, the wife was in need of employment.
She saw a 'help wanted' ad in the paper,
and got the confused notion that the business
was right across the street from her house.
So she dressed up, put her resume together,
and walked over to apply for the job.
She gave her resume to the front desk person,
who told her they would keep it on file.
Of course they would, she thought -- they had advertised for help.
And she went home.

She and her husband got down on their knees
and asked the Lord to give her the job she had applied for.
And before they were finished praying, the phone rang.
"We've been looking for someone with your qualifications,"
the woman told her.
And so the Lord gave her a job that hadn't been advertised.

I love how the Lord can use even our confusion and misunderstanding
to direct us into His will.

That Had Seen The First House

I read this morning from Ezra 3 with my children.

And when the builders laid the foundation of the temple of the LORD, 
they set the priests in their apparel with trumpets, 
and the Levites the sons of Asaph with cymbals, 
to praise the LORD, after the ordinance of David king of Israel.  
And they sang together by course in praising and giving thanks to the LORD; 
because he is good, for his mercy endureth for ever towards Israel. 
And all the people shouted with a great shout, when they praised the LORD, 
because the foundation of the house of the LORD was laid. 

But many of the priests and Levites 
and chief of the fathers, old men, that had seen the first house, 
when the foundation of this house was laid before their eyes, 
wept with a loud voice; 
and many shouted aloud for joy: 
So that the people could not discern the noise of the shout of the joy 
from the noise of the weeping of the people: 
for the people shouted with a loud shout, 
and the noise was heard afar off.
~Ezra 3:10-13

It's a curious thing, the human heart.
In Ezra 1:1, I learn that this endeavor was prophesied by Jeremiah,
stirred up by the Lord's work in a heathen king's heart,
entirely directed by and according to the will of God;
blessed and commissioned --
and yet grieved over by some of God's people.

It looked like nothing to them,
because they had hearts wedded to loss, captured by the past.
To many, God's work was a joyful affirmation of His help.
They looked forward with praise and thanksgiving.
But to some, this new thing was just a record of their losses.
They howled in misery.

It strikes me how differently the two groups respond
to the very same work of God.
It's easy to do, when you suffer a loss,
to treat every new gift like a curse.
To reject it all as worthless because it isn't what it was.
Or it isn't what you had wished.
But that doesn't mean it isn't God's will.
And it doesn't mean He won't bless it, or fellowship with You through it.

And it reminds me that if I want to grow,
if I want to be mature,
I'm going to have to forget the things that are behind,
and press on, reaching forward to the things that are ahead,
reaching for the goal of God's upward call in Christ Jesus.

Someone Else's Baby

The dream was disturbing.
There I was, in beautiful fellowship with my husband,
enjoying God's creation by the sea.
Something separated us.
Wolves came in, and tore my baby out of my arms,
biting into her, and flinging her off the pier I was on
to the rocks and water below.
The wolves chased me, trying to bite me, too.
I couldn't get to my baby.
They were stronger than me, faster than me,
and used the very beauty of the place I was in
to the destruction of my child.
My husband returned, the wolves fled, and he held the baby in his arms.
I woke up to the sound of her screaming.

Today I read, "Beware of dogs.
Beware of evil workers. Beware of the mutilation."
And I remember Paul's warning to the Ephesian elders
about the wolves who would come,
the false prophets who would come out of their own midst,
not sparing the flock, and drawing away disciples with perverse teachings.
Then he commended them to the word of His grace,
which is able to build them up
and give them an inheritance among the sanctified.

And I thought about Jesus' words in Matthew 7,
about the hypocrisy of trying to judge and cleanse a brother
while in a state of crippling blindness and under judgment.
And the application of the law has never removed a plank from my eye,
nor can it remove the speck from my brother's.

And all they did couldn't bring them into the kingdom.
Not prophecy.
Not exorcisms.
Not mighty works.
Jesus said you would know the tree by its fruit,
and all the fruit of human effort is rotten.
But the fruit that comes of connection with Him is holy.
"I never knew you," was the judgment.
The fruit was illegitimate.
Someone else's baby.
Because the law cannot produce the fruit of the Spirit.
And what is holy is not for the dogs.

The holy fruit, the precious treasure, is for the askers.
It isn't the work of the doers.
It isn't for the dogs, but for the sons.
Not for proximity to holiness, but relation to it.
A good gift from a good Father.
Sustenance offered to a child.
Not an attainment of the flesh.

There is a big wide gate that lots of people walk through,
and it leads to a road of human achievement.
And it is the way of destruction.
But Life is down the narrow road. 
Jesus said, "I am the Way, the Truth, and the Life.
No man comes to the Father but by Me."
"I never knew you," was the judgment.
He called them workers of iniquity.

Paul traded his vast resume for one thing and one thing only:
the blood of Christ.
The connection.
The relation that bears fruit.
He traded his circumcision, his law-abiding status,
his zealous pursuit of Biblical theology,
his heritage, his family tree,
his prestigious education,
his religious superiority --
all of it --
for the knowledge of Him.
Because the one left him working iniquity.
All the works of righteousness achieved through the law
are a damning record of the unrighteousness of the doer.
They are hypocritical.
They are clean words from unclean lips.
They are coming to the marriage bed pregnant with someone else's child.

And the teaching of the works of the law as the means to grace
is the perversion of the gospel.
There's no inheritance there.
It's unclean. It is destructive, evil work. And it mutilates our souls.
It does not spare the flock of God.
It tears it up.
It is the result of separation from Christ.
It casts the fruit of union with Him on the rocks.
And it chases down the Bride to destroy her, too.

And it is the word of His grace that is able to build us up,
and give us an inheritance with the sanctified.
Are you worried about sanctification?
It is ours through His grace.
The inheritance of the holy is only born of His holiness.
And all our efforts are wood, hay and stubble apart from union with Him.

Stars and Sand and Every Hair

Grains of sand and all our hairs.

A friend posted a link to a photograph NASA released
that focused in on one quarter of the Andromeda Galaxy,
which is a very small section of the visible universe to us, here on earth.
It is 2.5 million light years away, and the sharpest photo NASA has.
100 million stars individually recognizable in it.
My son and I watched the video that spanned the photograph.
It took a video to look over the image, because it is a huge image.
Part of the galaxy was so densely starred
that it appeared more light than dark.
"It looks like sand!" my son exclaimed.

"That's an interesting comment," I said,
"because stars and sand
are what God promised Abraham's descendants would be like."

The stars.
Whenever I felt troubled as a teenager,
I would go out in the dark and look up.
So vast.
Innumerable.
It reminded me of how vast God's knowledge and His power are.
How the choreography of the heavens is His handiwork.
How His mind comprehends all these things I cannot fathom.
The heavens declare the glory of God.
He sees the big picture.
Bigger than we have yet comprehended.

Ah, but the sand...
From the vastness of the heavens to the grains of the earth.
Details I'm too big and important to take notice of.
I walk on it.
But I don't get close enough to count it.
The sand touches me, but I don't know it.
Not like that.
I've seen so little of it.
Those things that are so out of my reach,
and the ones that are so easily touchable,
are both unknowable to me,
and intimately known to Him.

Surely if human beings can zoom in
on a galaxy 2.5 million light years away
and recognize individual stars clustered like sand,
He can see me.
I'm a lot bigger than a grain of sand, and He has counted them.

"You comprehend my path and my lying down, 
and are acquainted with all my ways."
I am not even acquainted with all my ways.
I have talked in my sleep and not known it, but according to Psalm 139,
"There is not a word on my tongue, 
but behold, O Lord, You know it altogether."
The sum of His thoughts toward me is more in number than the sand.

"The hairs of your head are all numbered," Jesus said.
"Do not fear those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul."
Do you need that reminder?
I often do.
Why not fear death?
Because He is Life.
Because He was raised from the dead.
Because connection with Him will raise us, too.
And those who serve and worship darkness and death
cannot snuff out Light and Life,
no matter how many they put to sleep for a little while.

Flipping the Pancakes

I made potato pancakes for lunch.
They are basically two ingredients: mashed potatoes and eggs.
Garlic, salt and pepper to taste.
I've struggled with making them right.
My dad always made them for me, and I loved them.
The first time I tried to do it on my own, as a married woman,
I added milk.
Wondered why they were wrong.

I did okay today.
They're funny things, though.
When you first mix them up, they're so sloppy.
I slap a spoonful onto the frying pan in butter, and then wait and watch.
I always try to flip it before it's ready.
It falls apart.
Half flips, half doesn't.
I use the pancake turner to pat the entire thing back into a circle
and wait longer.

More heat, more pressure, and it becomes one.
I slide the turner underneath, and it holds together.
Moves as one.
Less breaks off to do its own thing.

As I cooked them today, I thought about marriage.
These two ingredients forming one thing.
The heat and the pressure and the time
changing us from an incoherent mass that falls apart
when we try to work together
into something that moves as one,
each part a complement to the other.

Perhaps it occurred to me because of a line from our wedding vows:
we promised to adhere to one another.
Our pastor thought that a funny phrase,
and made a joke about our first kiss.
But I think it's a beautiful turn of words.

And I hope my soul is melding just as surely to the Lord's.
Growing more and more able to move when He moves.
To hold fast and remain.
To be mixed together with Him in such a way
that I am His, and He is mine, and we are one.

It Wasn't You

"So now it was not you that sent me hither, but God: 
and He hath made me a father to Pharaoh, and lord of all his house, 
and a ruler throughout all the land of Egypt."
Genesis 45:8

We forget that God can and will use the sinful actions and animosity of rivals
to further His plan in our lives.
That the angry brother, driven by jealousy,
can still be subject to God's control.
It doesn't excuse the sin to acknowledge the sovereignty.
God moves even through conflict and unhappiness and dysfunctional families.
In every one of the families of the patriarchs, there are issues.
The extra women. Hagar. Zilpah. Bilhah.
There are brothers at war.
Ishmael against Isaac. Esau against Jacob.
The sons of the handmaids against Joseph.

There are favorites played, between wives and between sons.
Marital strife -- even between Isaac and Rebekah,
who had no extras in their marriage.
But the children caused conflict between them.
Years of unsettled wandering and infertility.

And a Promise that did not fail.
A future and a hope that is still working in their children.
Being named the friend of God.  
Governed by God.  
Laughter.  
The father of faith.
The one the nation is named for.

"It was not you who sent me here," Abraham's great-grandson said.
"It was God."

Perhaps he had taken to heart
how God had moved and worked in his great-grandfather's family.
His grandfather's family.
His father's family.
He had moved them through conflict and animosity --
sometimes earned, and sometimes unmerited.
But always directed.

The conniving father-in-law.
The disdainful household help.
The jealous step-brother.
The fighting wives.
The cheating employer.
The murderous brothers.
All of them had been ultimately fitted into the intended will of God
and the Promise He kept promising them.

"And we know that to them that love God 
all things work together for good, 
even to them that are called according to his purpose."
Romans 8:28

Musings on the Social Network

I am thinking about what edifies others,
instead of draining them of their energy and motivation
with complaints and problems.
Giving thanks.
When my eyes are scanning for what to thank Him for,
instead of what bothers me, what I don't like,
how I've been wronged today, how things aren't meeting my expectations and desires,
it sends out ripples of good through my own heart and mind, and into the community.

But the opposite is also true.
Scanning for negatives to complain about, for faults in others,
for what to be unhappy about,
creates unhappiness first in me, and spreads to others.
I have a child prone to "I don't like..."
For some time, my response to these comments has been,
"What DO you like?"
It's funny how it changes things to look for the good instead of the bad.

So, I ask you today: what do you like?
What can you thank God for?
What is praiseworthy today?

I love quiet mornings with my coffee and my Bible and my husband by the fire.
My sons came down this morning
and told me they had picked up their room without being asked.
And although there is much busyness getting ready for Christmas just now,
I get to spend time doing some shopping with a friend, instead of facing the madness alone.

Ah, and friends. Don't they make you smile just by existing?
What a gift that God gives them to us, that He sets the lonely in families,
and makes us into one in Christ.
And now it's YOUR turn.

Second and First

I took my son to his second piano lesson today.
Second is a key word to what follows.
His teacher seemed quite pleased with his ability to hear the music.
I do not play the piano, although a number of people in my family do.
I brought a book along, intending to read.
But I kept being distracted by overheard reminders
to sit with a strong back,
and to keep his hand positioned in a hill, and not a valley.
In spite of the repetition of these reminders,
it was obvious she was pleased with his musical inclination.

His teacher taught him a new warm up.
He played it, and then asked her
if he could show her something it reminded him of.
"Yes, of course."
He haltingly worked out a tune, faltering a little at first,
and then plainly resolving into It Is Well With My Soul.

Scenes from my uncle's house, while he lay very sick
with his parents and siblings around him singing this came to mind.
Laughter through tears, and joy in sorrow.
A few months later, they were singing my Grandma home,
with the same uncle brought in through video phone calls.
So many songs of faith and hope in pain and death.
When I recognized the music, I cried.

I do not know
what parents usually experience with their children's piano lessons.
This is my first time.
But my son stuns me.
As we got into the car to leave, I said,
"I've never heard you play that one before."
"Well, that's the first time I ever played it, Mom. That's why it wasn't right."
Ah.
The first time you ever played it, it was nearly in a flash of inspiration
from hearing a short warm-up exercise?
Of course.
"Hey, next time pick something I can hear without crying."